Sales training often seems to be different versions of the same thing. So what’s really new? I think when you’re teaching prospecting or finding new business, you really should be talking about social networking. This is especially true if your customers are under 30. The picture above shows many of the sites that provide lots of free opportunities to network with people around the world.

I started searching for articles that would show the best strategy and what I found were a lot of promos for marketing help and offers to buy sales training. Not as helpful as I’d like. So I’m going to give it a shot. Here’s what I’d do.

First, I’d set up a blog. Write articles and invite others to comment on you are of interest that relates to what you’re selling or what you’re company does. If, you’re in health care write about health care. If you sell cars, write about cars. Use this blog as your home base and as a way to establish you’re expertise. Forget about selling at this point, you’re building your network of contacts.

Second, put your blog address on your business card and emails. As you do this keep in mind that what you write might be read by potential customers so keep it professional.

Third, start by search for and commenting on similar blogs and see if you can do a link exchange in your blogroll.

Fourth, use lots of tags that will help others with your interests can find your blog.

Fifth, start to explore the related concepts and other free services. Try a blog carnival. Try a blog talk radio show. Post your site on all the blog catalogs.

Sixth, check your traffic. What are people searching on and how do they find you? Can you cater to those interests? See if it leads you to other sites that you can model after.

I’m going to stop here and ask for your ideas. What’s worked well and what should be guidelines to follow. There are so many options and services it’s hard to choose. Could this be a the new rotary club or chamber of commerce. Give your thoughts.

What I’ve seen in most call centers is that trainers come up through the line. The start as agents move to leads to supervisors and then to trainers. This gives them a good background in what happens on the phones and how to talk about the technical aspects of the job.

However, few have any formal background in training and development and I’m usually surprised that they have not reached out to the training community to find out what’s going on.

Other than reading my book, I always suggest that they start by getting involved in the major training and performance improvement associations to try and find resources and a mentor. It’s helpful to find associations with good local chapters that you can be part of at a very minimal cost. The two I suggest that everyone starts with are the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD.org) and the International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI.org).

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This blog is focused on anything related to learning faster. From time to time, I'll be posting about my book Learning Paths: Increase profits by reducing the time it takes to get up-to-speed (Pfeiffer 2004).
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